


At Your Side

by Joulez



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:30:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joulez/pseuds/Joulez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's what friends did, they stayed at your side, even if you didn't want them there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> Not Beta'd.  
> Written for the **whump-a-palooza** challange over at **whitecollarhc** on LiveJournal

Peter hated seeing Neal so still, he was so use to seeing him so full of life, always moving around fiddling with something that he'd gotten his hands on. This stillness, this lifelessness was almost indecent of the younger man and all Peter wanted to see in that moment was Neal moving around again. There had been times when he thought he'd been given a child as a CI instead of an adult. 

Sighing Peter tried to get comfortable in the plastic chair, it seemed everything in a hospital was designed to make visitors uncomfortable. He'd refused to leave Neal's side, although he knew Neal was safe now and well onto his way to recovering. This was his CI, his partner, his _friend_ , that meant he stayed sat in the uncomfortable chair until Neal woke up. That's what friends did, they stayed at your side, even if you didn't want them there. 

He should have known that something like this was going to happen, they'd been pushing their look too much lately, things falling into place too easily. From the moment that Neal had left his sight everything had felt wrong, as though they were missing something glaringly obvious. It was the same twisted up feeling that he'd got when Neal had escaped prison, the feeling of not-right, that something was going to happen. It wasn't until that _tape_ had landed on his desk, the tape that set off every warning he had. When he had played it, it felt a bit like time had stopped, like everyone was holding their breath at the same time. No one seemed to move or speak as the tape played out in front of them.

Peter could still feel his stomach twist as he remembered seeing Neal on that tape, bruises along his face, a distinct bloodied patch on Neal's left shoulder. Traces of torture written across his face. Peter could still remember taking his phone out and dialling Neal's number, he'd been sure that the tape was some kind of sick joke. He'd hoped for Neal to answer that call, to actually be okay. There had been no answer. 

He was brought back to the present by a moan from across the room, he was at Neal's side in a second, a hand holding the shoulder and the other on Neal's forearm. It seemed to help as the fidgeting stopped almost immediately and he fell quiet. Peter might not of been able to help Neal as he'd been hurt but he was certainly going to help him now. 

He didn't bother going back to the chair after that, he just stood there holding onto Neal, afraid that if he let go this was going to turn out to be some kind of dream. Peter knew that until Neal was awake and coherent again, the over protectiveness was there to stay, no one got into the room without his say so. No one was going to be able to get close to Neal, until he had checked them out. He was just glad that he'd been given a few days leave, it would have been rather difficult to work cases from a hospital room.

Not that he hadn't done that before, but this time was different, he needed his attention on Neal. It had taken them three days to track Neal down, Neal's kidnappers had kept moving him from place to place. Once they had managed to find Neal, it taken another few hours before a team was ready to go in. 

Peter had never felt more impatient than he had been in them few days. Everything had gone too slow, information was non-existence and people had gotten in their way. He knew that it was going to be a long time before he let Neal go undercover like that again, and if anything felt wrong, he was going to do something about it. He wasn't just going to hope it would go away, that everything was going to turn out okay, because it didn't. But for now, now he had a friend to look after, even if said friend was unconscious and didn't know what was going on. Because that was what Neal was, a friend.


End file.
